AFL-CIO political leader Alexander Barkan has led the fight to amend language in the charter to ban "implied" as well as "mandatory" quotas. His chief opposition has come from party caucuses of women and blacks and the Democratic Planning Group that comprises the McGovern-McCarthy-Kennedy wing of the party. Barkan's opponents see a wholesale ban on quotas as a threat to greater minority group participation.

Kansas City Compromise

A party commission set up to establish rules governing the 1976 presidential convention, chaired by Baltimore City Councilor Barbara Mikulski, earlier this year reached a compromise on the matter of quotas and affirmative action. The Kansas City convention, with the encouragement of Strauss and party moderates, might adopt the compromise language of the Mikulski commission for the permanent party charter.

That compromise requires all state parties to implement affirmative action plans to encourage minority group participation and bans only "mandatory quotas." The state plans must be submitted to the national committee for approval.

Strauss has said he will push for the compromise to avoid splintering the party over what he calls a "minor semantic problem." But Barkan already has threatened to pull his labor support out of the party. Late last summer, the black caucus threatened to walk out of Kansas City if Barkan succeeded in amending the rules.

Other potential conflicts, over various rules that may increase the authority of the national party over the state parties, could surface this weekend and would pit state chairmen and most governors, particularly George Wallace, against party reformers and liberals of the McGovern camp